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Neil Turok Delivers 2012 Massey Lectures

March 14, 2013

Neil Turok, Director of Perimeter Institute, delivered the 2012 CBC Massey Lectures to sold-out audiences across Canada. Turok’s lectures, The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos, are a visionary look at the way the human mind can shape the future. The lectures can be enjoyed anytime through iTunes, or purchased as a book from House of Anansi Press.

“UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE IS PART OF WHO WE ARE.” – NEIL TUROK

ABOUT THE CROSS-CANADA TOUR

Over the past fifty years, the prestigious Massey Lectures have become an annual highlight of Canada's national intellectual life. The lectures are intended to present distinguished thinkers as they share original insight on subjects of contemporary interest. From October 3 to 24, 2012, Neil Turok offered insights, anecdotes, and a richer understanding of science with packed audiences in six major Canadian cities. Kicking off the Massey Lectures with a live streamed webcast from Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Neil then traveled to St. John’s, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. Each lecture was recorded live and originally broadcast on CBC Radio One’s Ideas the week of November 12 to 16. Perimeter’s Educational Outreach team also visited each host city before the Massey Lectures to provide special GoPhysics! and Physica Phantastica presentations to local students. These in-class events introduced modern physics concepts discussed in Neil’s lectures, highlighting cutting edge research from the quantum world to the expansive cosmos.

About "The Universe Within"

Anansi Press writes: Every technology we rely on today was created by the human mind, seeking to understand the universe around us. Scientific knowledge is our most precious possession, and our future will be shaped by the breakthroughs to come.In this personal, visionary, and fascinating work, Neil Turok, Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, explores the transformative scientific discoveries of the past three centuries -- from classical mechanics, to the nature of light, to the bizarre world of the quantum, and the evolution of the cosmos. Each new discovery has, over time, yielded new technologies causing paradigm shifts in the organization of society. Now, he argues, we are on the cusp of another major transformation: the coming quantum revolution that will supplant our current, dissatisfying digital age. Facing this brave new world, Turok calls for creatively re-inventing the way advanced knowledge is developed and shared, and opening access to the vast, untapped pools of intellectual talent in the developing world. Scientific research, training, and outreach are vital to our future economy, as well as powerful forces for peaceful global progress.Elegantly written, deeply provocative, and highly inspirational, The Universe Within is, above all, about the future -- of science, of society, of ourselves. | more information on Neil Turok |

MASSEY CONTEST (NOW CLOSED)

To celebrate the 2012 Massey Lectures, Perimeter Institute held a contest to give away event tickets, copies of the Massey Lectures book, and a grand prize science safari trip to Perimeter in Ontario, Canada and then the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Find out more

About Perimeter Institute

Perimeter Institute is the world’s largest research hub devoted to theoretical physics. The independent Institute was founded in 1999 to foster breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of our universe, from the smallest particles to the entire cosmos. Research at Perimeter is motivated by the understanding that fundamental science advances human knowledge and catalyzes innovation, and that today’s theoretical physics is tomorrow’s technology. Located in the Region of Waterloo, the not-for-profit Institute is a unique public-private endeavour, including the Governments of Ontario and Canada, that enables cutting-edge research, trains the next generation of scientific pioneers, and shares the power of physics through award-winning educational outreach and public engagement.